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Tales of the Market: New Perspectives on Consumer Society in the 20th Century

Journal

H-Soz-u-Kult

Article number

2832

Number of pages

47

Document type

Article

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities (FGw)

Institute

Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH)

Abstract

The current boom of scholarship on consumer society yields new insights into how the interplay of consumers and markets has
created consumer societies. This review highlights how social history and cultural history have converged to demonstrate how
citizen-consumers have constituted consumer societies. The alertness to the constitutive role of citizens is visible in definitions
of consumer society which stress contemporary perceptions of consumption. In the same vein, the significance of civic organizations
such as consumer associations, the labor movement, co-operatives and the fair trade movement for the evolution of consumer
societies has come into view. Ultimately, this new focus in the history of consumption raises innovative questions about the
entangled nature of consumers and their societies, and of scholars and their subject matter.

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